You are right about having to manually adjust the needles. Actually, I had to move both the tach and speedo needle all the way past the clockwise stop to about the amount of distance they were off (car was idling slightly below zero, and speedo was off about five or six miles from the digital speed readout. I had the cluster connected but out of shell while doing these adjustments because they have to be fine tuned to get just right. I finally got all needles back to where they belong...YES!!!
So screw the pixel display for now! My beautiful CLK is back to where it was before I started what I'm gonna call Saturday's "Cluster F**K" marathon. Still pissed at MB for designing it that way and hopefully they will HAVE to fix these one day. Till then, I've got some nice watches to tell time and from now till October where I live the temp is gonna be simply HOT!
So, I took my cluster back out to fix the gas gauge... all is good. I have full clock, full temp, and all but 2 pixels on the shift readout.
Gas gauge needle is back to operational as well as the light leakage I had. Here's the "needle issue" in a nutshell. Either when you release the back plastic piece or when you release those other circuit board pins it's very easy to unclip the dials as well.
That goes for the speedo, the tach and the gas/temp dials. So, a quick push on the face of the gas/temp dial and all was good. As a visual cue, the tach and the gas/temp dials should be a couple millimeter *behind* the speedo dial. Flush is not right, and in front of the speedo will cause the needles to stick, as well as ambient light to leak into warning areas.
My advice is to connect the wires after you've snapped on the back plastic and start the car, verify all dials work right, and then disconnect and snap on the front.
Thank you, Franasia, your instructions were excellent - really top notch.
Unfortunately it did not work for me.
I followed the instructions exactly, and all seemed well but when I re-installed the IC there was no change at all in my intermittent/non-working temperature and clock/shift displays. ALSO the fuel gauge would not work. I discovered that the mouse pad material I used was too thick and causing the fuel gauge motor to bind.
I found a thinner mouse pad and installed that - fuel gauge worked fine, but still no effect on the temperature and clock/shift displays.
So I tried again this time with the alternate Foam block method but no effect.
Finally, I reached behind the ribbon cable with a smooth stick (actually a nice clean smooth chopstick!) and rubbed gently on top of the ribbon cable connectors. Reassembling with the thinner mouse pad material I found that the problem was not solved but slightly changed in that some different elements of the LCD worked while ones that had previously worked now did not work.
I am now an expert at removing the instrument cluster and dismantling & reassembling because I have done it about 5 times.
SO - if you're still with me - I have an idea: I think the ribbon cable connectors are corroded and I will need to disconnect the ribbon cables and clean the contacts, then reassemble using Franasia's method with the the thin pad material.
Has anyone done something like this before?
Will I be able to reconnect the ribbon cable if I completely disconnect it?
Will it be possible to precisely align the ribbon cables so that the connectors line up with the circuit board connectors?
I'm excited about this weekend's project. Thank you again for this awesome post!
However, this is my first trip down DIY lane on my E430, and I don't understand what others have said about the key in the ignition. So: do I put the key in the ignition while doing this job, or do I not? I understand the key in the ignition keeps things live while the battery is changed, does it also keep the cluster settings (miles, etc)?
Just put together this fix for the cluster pixel problem most of us are familiar with that I was able to do on my wagon. It covers the temp and clock displays fix. I posted it on the W210 section and figured I would post it here as well.
Enjoy
Hi I tried your fix, it worked pretty well when I tried it the first time, thought I could make it a little better with a little more pressure. Now it is worse than before I started.
I was able to make a tool to get the cluster out very simply by takeing a little flat piece of metal that I had and bending a little lip on it. Then you can slide it between the cluster and the dash and pull out the cluster a little at a time from each side. The other thing is how to remove the eletrical connectors on the back. There is a little gray clip that has to move and a little black stopper that you must push down in order to make the gray clip move to one side in order to remove the connector. I guess what I am going to have to do is take this to a speedomoter shop or electrical shop and have the little sprips re attached. Thanks anyway.
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